


anchoring

by Appleface



Category: Naissance des Pieuvres | Water Lilies (2007)
Genre: Continuation, End of Childhood, F/F, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It's kind of sad, Teenagers, and in two days, brief non-descriptive moments of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault, celine sciamma owns my ass, from floriane's perspective, i kind of am marie a little bit?, i love marie with all my heart, i'm going to rewatch water lilies tomorrow and CRY, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26692801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Appleface/pseuds/Appleface
Summary: Three years later, Floriane falters on the cusp of adulthood. She realises that she might not know herself quite as well as she once thought.
Relationships: Marie/Floriane
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	anchoring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [despenteswhore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/despenteswhore/gifts).



> Warning for brief, non-descriptive mentions of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault. If you've seen the film then it's similar to some of the things Floriane mentions having happened to her.

Floriane will be eighteen in one month from now. She doesn’t know how she feels about this.

Looking in the mirror last night, she started to cry at the thought of it. Wobbly tears and streaked mascara on a frozen face. And she couldn’t stop. Floriane didn’t even understand where this was coming from. It’s just an age. It’s adulthood; that’s a good thing. She’s been wanting to escape her adolescence for years now. And yet she cowered in bed, soaking the pillow, trembling. Floriane could muster no rationality and only think of the things she wanted.

  1. To swim. Not in the swimming pool, but in the sea. She wanted to taste salt and not chlorine, for once.
  2. To be ten years old again.
  3. Marie.



Now it’s morning and she feels cold again.

She goes to practice and finds herself scouring each room at the pool for Marie.

“Floriane,” says the instructor. “Concentrate.”

His eyes are on her as she gets out of the pool, his smile salacious. Floriane hardly thinks about it. Too distracted.

Like she’d show up again after – what, three years? Nearly three. What age would Marie be now, seventeen? Eighteen already? Floriane always assumed herself to be the older one, but she realises now that they never exchanged birthdays. It’s true, they hardly knew each other at all. It was a short time during summer when they were fifteen. She’s so different now. Marie probably is too. Floriane has never managed to understand why Marie started avoiding her. Out of some competitive, petty instinct, Floriane ignored Marie in return.

Three years. She realises this now on her way home. Three years since they’ve had a conversation. Floriane has grown since that time. She knows herself - has admitted that maybe it would be good to have friends. Female friends. Marie.

On the walk home, she takes a route she surely should have forgotten by now. And yet, Floriane is soon at Marie’s fence. Behind which is a glass window, which she kissed once. And behind the window is Marie.

She stands there for maybe two minutes. Tries to leave.

“Are you looking for Marie?”

Floriane doesn’t jump. She’s not the sort to be surprised. She turns to find Anne there. That chubby, childish girl. She is glaring and wearing flip-flops. Is it warm enough for flip-flops?

Floriane hears herself respond: “I wasn’t sure if she’d be in.”

“She’s not.”

“Where is she?”

Anne shrugs. She chews at a hangnail on her thumb. “She ignores me, sometimes.”

“She ignores me too.” Floriane doesn’t care to be in this conversation anymore and starts to walk away, back along the path she came.

Anne follows. “That’s not the same thing. I’m her friend.”

 _So am I,_ Floriane wants to say, but realises that this sentiment may no longer be true. Instead, she stays quiet.

After a moment, Anne, still following, says: “She’s coming to a party tonight.”

Floriane restrains her reaction and thinks to keep her voice level. “Whose party?”

“Edith’s.”

Edith hates Floriane.

“Are you going?” asks Anne. When Floriane looks at her, Anne’s eyes are round and placid, lips thin. Her jaw is set. She is scrutinizing, awaiting an answer. There is something jarringly adult about this expression, and it sticks out sorely on Anne’s face. She seems to be hoping that Floriane isn’t going to the party.

“I’ll be there,” Floriane says. And then: “Sorry to disappoint.”

Anne says nothing and takes a different path when they come across a fork in the road. Floriane goes home and drinks cold water from the tap.

\--

Floriane hasn’t gone to many parties after she realised last year that she didn’t like them very much. She liked dancing, but she could do that just as well in her room. It was only when she stayed home from the party the first time that Floriane understood why she went at all. Parties created a sort of façade; to be surrounded by people her age, moving bodies, laughter. But alone in her room, Floriane’s loneliness was plain and unhidden. It bled thick and mournful from her lungs, into the air around her. She couldn’t hide from it anymore. She was alone. This was a very mature realisation to come to, and Floriane felt nearly proud of herself. She did cry about it. But even so.

It felt good to be honest with herself, and after some time she became comfortable with her loneliness. She grew to accept it, almost. Save for the times where she would dream of friendships. It’s childish, she knows. But she can’t help but imagine girls who wouldn’t hate her, boys who wouldn’t want to fuck her. Concepts that are and always have been out of reach. When she tries to stick a face on these imaginations, more often than not she finds herself conjuring conversations with Marie.

Marie was an exception, wasn’t she?

Marie. Floriane arrives at Edith’s party with the intention of keeping low, but minutes in she realises that this is an impossibility. With ease, Floriane slips into her vexing confidence, practiced, and almost comforting. She ignores the boys, speaks to no-one, and waits, watches.

And Marie arrives. With Anne. Welcomed by nobody, slipping into the background. Her famous invisibility. Floriane was so jealous of that, once. But in seeing her now she finds none of that envy within herself. Only biting relief and urgency.

Marie sees her. Their eyes lock for all of two seconds, and then Marie vanishes. Floriane follows her, undeterred and impatient. She has grown so impatient. Marie pushes her way into the bathroom, and when Floriane gets there the door has been locked.

Floriane knocks.

Nothing.

“Marie,” she calls.

Nothing.

“Marie,” she says again, “it’s me.”

Please open the door, Marie.

Marie opens the door.

She is not the same. Taller, hair shorter, hovering above her shoulders. Her face is fitted. Acne scars. And yet, Marie’s eyes remain steady and unapologetic. Some things never change.

Three years.

Marie doesn’t say anything. She leans against the door frame, arms folded. Angry?

“Why are you mad at me?” Floriane asks, unwilling to sweeten her words.

Marie lowers her gaze. Her arms are gangly, hanging by each side. “Who says I’m mad at you?”

“You’ve been avoiding me for three years.”

No response. Marie doesn’t look up.

Floriane searches for her gaze, tilting her head. “I just want to know what I did wrong,” she speaks quietly, allowing vulnerability to seep into her voice. She can’t think of anybody else she would speak to like this.

Nothing. But Marie doesn’t move.

“Marie,” says Floriane, soothing. Instinctively, she reaches out to stroke Marie’s cheek.

Marie’s reaction is swift and fierce. She slaps Floriane’s hand away. Floriane withdraws, alarmed, and realises that Marie has returned her gaze. It is sharp. Fury ablaze in silence. Floriane remembers the first time she saw it in Marie when Marie called her a slut. That cutting tone. Forever unabashed. It hurt Floriane like nothing she can quite remember.

Marie snaps. “Don’t do that,” and then, quieter, looking away again, “You can’t do that.”

Floriane regains her composure. She wants to know why but is afraid to ask. She realises, now, just how willing she is to compromise and to bend for the sake of Marie’s friendship.

She’s been so lonely.

“I miss you,” Floriane whispers.

Marie meets her eyes again. Wavering this time. But her anger has quelled.

“You miss me too,” Floriane says. Not a question. She knows it. They both do.

Marie doesn’t admit it. But doesn’t tell Floriane to go away. Instead, they stay there together in a silence that is not quite awkward and not quite bearable.

But it’s something. God, it’s something.

\--

They become friends again.

It’s not magical. In Floriane’s memory, their friendship was a summer bubble, a meandering, giddy mess of adolescence. Time was unimportant. There were no deadlines - she can remember the months or days. Only swimming and dancing and laughter.

There are not many of those things. Marie is stiff and silent. She really has grown, not just in height. She is asserting herself. Speaking up, giving opinion.

“This song is so shit,” Floriane says, when sitting in Marie’s room and listening to the radio.

“I like it,” says Marie without hesitation.

Floriane is taken aback. Nearly embarrassed. She stares at her fingernails until the song changes.

Marie does this a lot. She doesn’t pretend, not once, as far as Floriane can tell. She isn’t bending to fit Floriane’s interests or disinterests. She seems much more opinionated and intelligent. But Floriane theorises that maybe she was like this all along, and either Floriane didn’t notice, or Marie was hiding it. To impress her.

It was clear to Floriane then that Marie looked up to her some of the time. At least to begin with. Floriane is fairly used to this. The girls who hate her do so because they want to be her. They crave her magnetism and her beauty and her skill. Marie was more complex than that, but she still wanted to make some impression on Floriane; that was clear. But now, there’s none of that nonsense. In fact, she sometimes seems to be doing the exact opposite. Antagonising herself. Arguing for the sake of it. Not shying away from disagreement.

Confidence. Marie knows herself. Holds her head high.

She’s not a child anymore. Neither of them are.

“I’m eighteen in a few weeks,” Floriane tells Marie. They are sat outside a newsagent's on the curb. Floriane is eating an apple. She twists the stalk until it comes away.

Marie stares straight across the road. “I’m not eighteen until December.”

“I envy you,” laments Floriane.

"Why?" Marie sounds annoyed.

Floriane takes a bite of the apple. “You’re free a little while longer.”

“You think being a teenager is being free?” Marie asks, incredulous.

“What?” Pause. Another bite. “You think being an adult is being free?”

Marie picks at her jeans. They are ripped at the knee and baggy around her ankles. “I don’t think it’s that clear cut. Maturity doesn’t kick in just like that when the clock strikes midnight on your birthday. You won’t be any more or less free, not really. I bet you won’t feel any different.”

Floriane doesn’t quite know what to say to that.

\--

Two weeks to go. Marie is opening up. Flower petals uncurling.

Floriane makes her laugh for the first time since their friendship has rekindled. She forgets whatever the joke was immediately out of awe and triumph at seeing a flash of teeth in Marie’s smile. Marie is the funnier one, really, but together they find themselves giddy and ridiculous. Laughing until they can’t remember what the joke was. One night, they drink in Floriane’s room, which only amplifies the hilarity at nothing at all. In the morning Floriane is hungover. She vomits into the toilet. Some conscious part of her hopes that Marie will hold her hair back, but instead, Marie gives her a hair tie and says: “I have to go home.” So she does.

She still won’t let Floriane touch her. Not to pick an eyelash off her cheek or to take each other’s hands. In fact, Marie distances them as much as possible. Avoids Floriane’s eyes until she is proving a point, or spitting fierce opinion. It’s only in those moments that their eyes meet. Marie’s eyes are round, brown, and melancholic while at rest. Floriane chases this stare, begging for it through their conversation. Saying ridiculous things just to be met by those eyes, just to take her in. She forgets herself, and it’s only later in the night that Floriane wonders why she acts this way.

Soon she is distracted during practice. Her instructor notices, and calls her into his office. He doesn’t say much of interest and tries to touch her waist. She leaves as quickly as possible, ready to meet Marie outside. When she goes, Anne is there with her, and their conversation is heated. Anne sees Floriane approaching, and her mossy eyes flash dark and unkind. She storms off, arms folded. Marie watches her go.

“Come on,” says Floriane, and takes Marie’s wrist. She freezes, realising what she’s done, and looks to take in Marie’s expression.

Marie is staring at Floriane’s grip. After a hesitation, she tears away. Floriane feels a wash of dread, and apology surges to her tongue. But before she can spill, Marie is taking her hand. No longer a one-sided grasp, but mutual. Holding each other. She looks up, swallows. Waiting.

Floriane takes Marie away and they sit on the steps, which stretch high and white into the sky. To heaven, maybe. Though Floriane doesn’t really believe in heaven – no, she believes in ceilings. They sit together like they once did, years ago, younger and so different. How much things change in so little time. They’re still holding hands.

“Anne doesn’t like me,” Floriane states. Honesty. Marie likes honesty.

Marie looks at her. Long and hard. Floriane soaks it up. This gaze, forever doleful and young. She knows something. There’s something she’s hiding.

“Do you remember,” Marie begins. She pauses. Breaks the stare, and looks between them where their hands are tangled. “What you asked me to do, that time?”

Floriane knows what she’s talking about. It strikes her between the ribs. She recalls. Discomfort, nausea. Trembling. Unable to look Marie in the eyes. Wanting it to be over.

“Yes,” she admits. Something clicks. Floriane looks at their hands. Their fingers have entangled. “Is that…why you can’t touch me?”

Breath catches in Marie’s throat. “Sort of,” she says. Pause. “I’m touching you now, aren’t I?”

Her tone is low. It sounds like a promise. Floriane struggles to keep her voice steady as it rattles up her throat. “But you still don’t come to the pool.”

“I don’t practice anymore.”

“Why did you stop?”

Pause. “I was never really interested in swimming that much. I thought I was at the time.”

“What made you want to go?”

Marie says nothing. Without warning, she untangles their fingers and pulls her hand away to her lap. Stares ahead into the sky. Floriane feels cold all over. Emptied and impatient and wanting – wanting what?

She leans forward, arms curling around her knees. “Marie.”

Marie won’t look at her.

Floriane tries anyway. “There’s a show for the synchronised swimming. The day before my birthday. Will you come and watch?”

At first, it’s almost as though Marie didn’t hear her. But then she looks back. Her stare lands pointedly away from Floriane, directly past her. “Maybe,” she says.

It’s the best Floriane could hope for. That ‘maybe’ keeps her awake. Tossing and turning, and when she sleeps, she dreams of Marie’s hands and face, and of freezing to death alone in the sea. Seaweed tangles at her feet. Salt gets in her eyes.

\--

Seeing Marie becomes more and more common. Soon it’s every day. And with each passing hour, Floriane finds herself aching. It’s nothing like she’s ever felt before and she’s not – she’s not stupid. She knows what this could be. But Marie is a girl. A woman, maybe. But she’s also otherworldly and beautiful. Ethereal in some lighting and turns of phrase. In Floriane’s dreams, Marie is a ghost or as tall as crumbling churches. In her dreams, they climb the white stairs, hand in hand, and when they get to the top there is nothing but bright white light.

\--

Two nights before her birthday. The night before a show. Floriane is practicing late and alone, which she hates to do. She knows it was a mistake when she gets out of the water and the instructor is waiting for her with glimmering eyes.

He tells her that he loves her. And in two days she won’t be able to use her age as an excuse. In two days she’ll be a woman, and that will be used against her.

She tries to go. He stands in front of her and pulls her close. He tries to kiss her –

Floriane bites his tongue.

He shouts and she pushes him away, storming off. She dresses quickly, uncomposed and furious. She stomached it once, she laughed about it. What’s her problem? Is her tolerance lessening with age? What does this say for her maturity?

This is so embarrassing. She’s such a fucking child.

Floriane walks out into the chill and takes a stumbling, familiar path to a back garden. She knocks on the window, fist trembling. It’s only when Marie comes out that Floriane feels her shoulders shaking, the swelling behind her eyes. Wet cheeks. She lets leak a sob.

She wishes she was a child again.

\--

Marie doesn’t ask. Floriane suspects that she might know. She’s intuitive like that. Perceptive, knowing.

Floriane gets into her bed, under the sheets. Her hair is still wet. Marie says nothing, simply gets in, and gathers Floriane up in her gangly arms. It is warm and loving like nothing Floriane has ever known. She cries harder.

When she’s calmed down, she tells Marie what happened. Marie doesn’t respond, but her grasp on Floriane tightens.

“I used to get over it so quickly,” whispers Floriane. She is tracing a pattern on Marie’s shoulder. “When men were like that,” she makes a low noise. Hollow amusement. “My patience is running thin.”

Marie speaks at last. “Men don’t deserve your patience,” she says, fierce and gravelly. And then, quieter, into Floriane’s wet hair: “They don’t deserve you.”

Floriane sleeps. She dreams of nothing at all.

\--

In the morning Marie is not in the bed. Floriane lies there a little while, slowly awakening into the pale morning glow. The duvet is thrown back. Floriane rises just as Marie emerges from the bathroom. Dressed, hair tied up. Her expression is cold and flat.

Floriane feels dread seep through her chest. She climbs out of bed, her hair tangled. She feels sweaty, unclean. Teenage. She holds herself and dithers by the door leading out to Marie’s back garden. Marie fusses around the room, not looking at Floriane once.

“Are you coming?” she blurts. Undone, unkempt. Losing herself with each passing second, spilling every ounce of composure she has built. “To the competition?”

Marie stills. She is half-turned away, but Floriane can see her pink lips parted. Her eyelashes, long and shivering.

“I can’t.”

Marie doesn’t say it like she has some other obligation. Like the reason she can’t go is physical. The admittance is gravelly, pouring from her chest. A stitch of pain knitted plainly between them in the air.

Floriane goes. Never more certain of herself or of Marie.

She knows how she feels.

She wishes she didn’t. She wishes that she knew nothing at all.

\--

Floriane performs. She’s brilliant.

She pours everything into it. Her whole heart. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t hide her frenzy. The instructor is going to kill her and she won’t care. She’s going to run away and miss her eighteenth birthday. She’ll find the end of the world and fall off the edge. She’ll never dance again. She’ll never love a girl or a woman or anybody. She’ll never climb the white stairs. She’ll turn into sea foam.

The performance has turned animal. When Floriane comes up at the very end, she spots a face in the crowd. Illuminated, standing. Fixated and doe-eyed. The kind of doe that stares down an oncoming car.

Afterwards, Floriane, still wearing her wet swimsuit and a towel, races through the building. Marie meets her halfway down a corridor. Floriane lights up from the inside; a lantern, a firefly. She runs, nearly slipping on the tiles.

Floriane stops and so does Marie. They stand before each other, giddy and breathless. Alight.

“You came,” says Floriane, disbelieving.

Marie’s stare is unabashed. Adoring.

There’s nobody else around.

Floriane darts forward. Kisses her. A press of lips. Certain and yet unprecedented, a flurry of emotion. Wonderous, over too quickly.

Marie stares back. They calm down. come to.

Not Floriane’s first. Far from it.

Not her and Marie’s first. Not the same.

Nothing, Floriane realises, will be the same.

\--

Later, a party glows inside in fluorescent blue. Marie and Floriane escape to the poolside. Hands entwined.

“You know,” says Marie, “when I kissed you a few years ago, I cleaned my mouth out here afterwards.”

Floriane blinks. They are leaning against each other, bare feet in the water. “In the pool?”

“Yes.”

“That’s disgusting.”

She means it like a joke, but instead, there is a hollow pause. “I felt disgusting,” says Marie, quiet.

Floriane feels a drop. She tightens her grip on Marie’s hand. Marie turns her head, burying into the crook of Floriane’s neck.

After some time, Floriane croaks, childish and wobbly: “I don’t know what to do.”

Marie waits before responding, and Floriane feels breath on her collarbones. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

They don’t know where to go from here. But can’t quite let go of each other.

Tomorrow, Floriane turns eighteen. But it’s not midnight yet. They have minutes left. For now, they are young and foolish and they have all the time in the world.

For now, they sit. Anchoring each other to the earth.

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:  
> I love Water Lilies with all my heart. For me it really spoke to the teenage experience, specifically the queer teenage experience. I’ve known many Florianes and Annes. In many ways I am Marie. I wouldn’t change a thing about that movie and I was a little reluctant to write this because I didn’t really want to imagine what would happen after the ending. I also believe (though this is just one interpretation) that Floriane had no feelings for Marie during the film. So writing it in a different way was difficult, and that’s why I set the continuation years later. Feelings grow, people change. Teenagers are changing constantly. But I did really enjoy writing this in the end.
> 
> Also, this was spurred from bribery by a certain fic writer who may or may not have DELETED her works recently. Anyway, she said that she would reinstate her account if some water lilies fic appeared. I swear I’m not usually such a pushover.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it wasn't too terrible? Honestly, I can't really tell because it's nearly six a.m. and I have not slept at all.
> 
> Le grá,  
> Appleface  
> xxx


End file.
